Removing background noise with Audacity, Its easy and a must for every channel!

[thefedoranerd]

If there is one easy and simple thing you can do to boost the quality of your videos its to remove the background noise. This is a really simple and easy process and i will walk you through step by step.

NOTE! this only works if your editing software lets you have audio tracks independent of your video.

Before we start the tutorial we need to make a few preparations this includes downloading and installing audacity and the lame.dll and converting you video into an MP3. You can skip the pre-steps if you already have audacity and the lame_enc.dll installed.

Pre-Step 1: download audacity
This program is 100% free works on both PC and Mac here is the link the download page.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Pre-Step 2: download lame MP3 encoder DLL
Next you will need the lame_enc.dll, this is used to save files in MP3 format, it also is free make sure you download the zip folder and not the exe.

Download lame here:
http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/

Extract the zip file to the root of your C: drive so its easy to find later

Pre-Step 3: Convert your video into an MP3
there are many free video converters out there, i use a program called "any video converter" and it works quite well but you can feel free to find your own.

Here is the start of the actual tutorial
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Step 1: Open the file
Open your converted audio by going to File > Open then navigate to where you have it saved

Step 2: select some dead air
Find a part if your video that has a second or so of dead air that contains nothing but just your background noise. Your select too is selected by default and you can do a drag select to pick your dead air:

Step 3: Get noise profile
With your dead air selected go up to the tool bar and select Effects > Noise Removal... and it will bring up a dialog box. Click "Get Noise Profile" and it will use your selected dead air as the noise profile.

Step 4: select the whole track
Now that the program has the noise profile we need to select what part we are removing the noise from and normally i just use Ctrl+A to select all or you can just do a drag select over what you want.

Step 5: Open "Noise Remover" again and remove the noise
Go back to Effects > Noise Removal... and this time instead of clicking "Get Noise Profile" you will click OK, this button will be grayed out unless you did step 3.

Step 6: wait
This may take a little while depending on how much noise i needs to remove and how long the track is and when this is going it should look something like this.

Optional Step:
In my experience one pass of the noise remover is not enough to get a really clear track so i would recommend repeating steps 2 through 6 to get a really clear sound.

Step 7: Export to MP3
This is where your lame_enc.dll comes into play, once you are happy with your audio go to File > Export and make sure you have "MP3 File" selected under the file type drop down.
It will pop up with optional info tags but i just skips this and Hit ok.

At this point Audacity will ask for the lame_enc.dll encoder, just click browse and go to your C: drive were you put it and select it. After that it will ask where you want to save the exported MP3.

You're Done!!!

Try using this process on your next video and you will see a marked improvement in your audio quality but as always it's no substitution for a good microphone and even if you have a good mic i would still run noise removal.

This makes bad audio passable and good audio amazing!

Let me know if i left anything out or if you have any comments or questions!

 

[LyfeWithDragons]

Step 1: Get a mic that doesn't suck, and picks up zero background noise/static.

 

[thefedoranerd]

Step 1: Get a mic that doesn't suck, and picks up zero background noise/static.

not everyone has that option

 

[obscurimity]

It's very kind of you to make this guide.
I personally already use this technique, but you wrote this very well, so it's definitely going to help others.

I will add however, in my opinion, the Freemake Video Convertor is the best program for converting videos, and I've tried a lot of them.[DOUBLEPOST=1390957105,1390957057][/DOUBLEPOST]

Step 1: Get a mic that doesn't suck, and picks up zero background noise/static.

I have a very nice microphone, but it picks up the sound of my washing machine if it's turned on, so this technique helps me remove that.

 

[LyfeWithDragons]

not everyone has that option

I know, I just felt like kidding haha

 

[Vgamelp]

Very very nice tutorial thanks for posting. I use camtasia which has the same tool so i can say it's VERY useful and worth it.

 

[Crown]

Nice tutorial , thanks for taking the time. I'll move this over to the software forums.

There is also an excellent audacity tutorial by our very own @Tarmack which touches on this and expands on a few other topics like normalisation:

 

[Tarmack]

Not a bad tut. I disagree on one thing though. Don't encode to mp3 in Audacity. Leave it as .wav. When you're in production, avoid compressing formats until your final product and your quality will shine much more.

 

[TNFBattleblog]

Thanks for this tutorial. I am unable, at this time, to purchase a good quality mic, but it is on the list of things to buy, but until then, I'll be doing this!

 

[BlueStreakcomms]

Step 1: Get a mic that doesn't suck, and picks up zero background noise/static.

It doesnt always work like that , because my blue snow ball still picks up background noise at times